We finally arrived in a country that speaks Portuguese. Be able to talk Portuguese with people in the streets is a sensation that has long been forgotten. But, the Portuguese in Mozambique is not like in Brasil. For most of the people is a second language. They learn at home their native language and Portuguese in the schools. Entering Mozambique was great adrenalin! We knew that in English ex-colonies you should drive in the left side (or wrong side) of the road (like England), but Mozambique was a Portuguese ex-colony. By logic we should change lanes from left in Swaziland t [View Full Entry]

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Swaziland was a lucky country. Our first lucky moment didn't have to wait us enter the country. Al thought Brazilians need a visa and they are not issued at the border, we managed to get in without one. As we arrive very late, the border gates were closed and they didn't have any options but to let us in. Amandine of course, with her french passport didn't have the same problem. Sometimes we get really jealous.... hehehe. And amazing as it may sound, we didn't have to wait 24 hours to have our second lucky moment. After waking up late next [View Full Entry]

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South Africa is supposed to have lots of things in common with Brazil. Both of us are third world countries, but at the same time we have a big industry, agriculture, technology development, health care and we are of major importance in our continents. So we was really exited to see if all this were true. In the way to cape town we decided to stop in a small town close by the road (I will not write down the name of the town because until know I can't pronounce it or worse would be having to remember how it is [View Full Entry]

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At November 8 of 2003, our illiterate and now sadly re-elected president, made the following comment: "I'm surprised because if you arrive in Windhoek, it doesn't seem like you're in an African country. It's so clean and beautiful." I know he was extremely stupid making this comment, because to begin with, it offends all the African countries at once. But, in a way, we couldn't stop ourselves of doing the same comment when we arrived in Namibia. So Clean, so developed. The Caprivi strip, up north, beside its stunning beauty, wasn't much different from the other places we have been be [View Full Entry]

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Our trip to Zambia began with the right feet. From Dar es Salaam in Tanzania we took the TAZARA train in direction of Zambia. The trip to the border by train took us one day and one night, on top of having a very comfortable train trip, what makes this trip so special is that the train crosses the Selous National Park in Tanzania. This giant and almost untouched by the tourism industry National Park is home for elephants, giraffes, lions and many other famous animals. To make everything better, as the train crosses the heart of the park we had [View Full Entry]

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What can we say about Tanzania.... every trip has its good and its bad times. Tanzania was for us, the bad time. From 29 countries visited, for sure, it's the one we would not recommend anyone to visit. Everything that exists in Tanzania to be visited can be found in the other neighbour countries (exception to the Kilimanjaro, but even that you can climb Mont Kenya). We have been only in Tanganyika (continental part of the country). Zanzibar still to be explored when we come back up. Tanzania people are money oriented, not in the good way, like the workaholic cities [View Full Entry]

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We didn’t have plans for Rwanda, but as we were there in our way back from the volcano in Congo, we decided to look around the country of the thousand hills. Fore our surprise we found out one of the most developed countries visited do far in Africa besides its dark history. Quite recently the country was scene of one of the most impressive genocide known to mankind. In 1994 the dominant tribe called "Hutu" decide to exterminate all the members of the "Tutsi" tribe (15% of the population). After the call of their lieder, the Hutus started to kill their [View Full Entry]

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As promissed in many e-mails, we did what no one sane would ever recomend. During election time in the Democratic Republic of Congo (first after 30 years) we went to make a little visit to the country. Of course the east side where all the rebel armies are. And to add a little more to the visit we also climbed the active Nyiragongo volcano, the one that destroyed a whole city in 2002 with its water like fluid lava. After passing the Congo border control (very pleasant staff as oposite that what we were expecting), we where told to search for [View Full Entry]

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Uganda wasn't in our plans, but many of the people we met, told us that the pearl of Africa (Uganda) was something that we could not miss. So, we made a little detour in our trip plans. Added this little wonder to our way. One of the highlights was the white water rafting in Jinja. This means 8 hours, 30 Km and 14 rapids starting close to the source of the Nile river with the add-on of crocodiles in the river border. Kampala, Uganda's capital city, was our exploration base. From there we went to Murchison falls. Of course we decide [View Full Entry]

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The lions, elephants, giraffes, leopards, chitas, rhinos, hippopotamus and buffaloes that live in African Savannas are more amazing than scary. We enter the park, that look very much like many of the cattle farms in Brazil (with no fences of course), with a Toyota van and suddenly in the middle of the grass we see an elephant to the right and a lion the left. Strange feeling that someone had put them there for the tourists. Is a while until we realize that the had been always there, this is not a zoo, is their natural habitat. Nobody comes and feed [View Full Entry]

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